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The guilt of persecution may be imputed to Euric, king of the Visigoths; who suspended the exercise of ecclesiastical, or, at least, of episcopal functions; and punished the popular bishops of Aquitain with imprisonment, exile, and confiscation. But the cruel and absurd enterprise of subduing the minds of a whole people was undertaken by the Vandals alone.
But a few days afterwards Theodoric murdered Odoacer while sitting at a banquet, and then made himself the sole king of Italy. He divided one-third of the land of the country among his own followers. So the Ostrogoths settled in Italy, and Ostrogoths, Romans, and Visigoths were governed by Theodoric as one people. Theodoric died at the age of seventy-one after ruling Italy for thirty-three years.
Another peril at the same time pressed heavily on Duke Eudes: his northern neighbor, Charles, sovereign duke of the Franks, the conqueror, beyond the Rhine, of the Frisons and Saxons, was directing glances full of regret towards those beautiful countries of Southern Gaul, which in former days Clovis had won from the Visigoths, and which had been separated, little by little, from the Frankish empire.
After the second German invasion, in the year 406 of our era, there was little left in Gaul of Roman civilization; and after the coming of the Visigoths, four years later, Roman civilization was at an end. Yet during that period of disintegration the theatre was not injured materially; and it actually remained almost intact although variously misused and perverted nearly down to our own day.
The most definite thing in the place was the little café, where the waiters, I think, must be the ghosts of the old Visigoths; the most definite, that is, after the little château and the little cathedral. Everything in the Cité is little; you can walk round the walls in twenty minutes.
But the affectionate peasants who were impatient to welcome their deliverer, could easily betray some unknown or unguarded ford: the merit of the discovery was enhanced by the useful interposition of fraud or fiction; and a white hart, of singular size and beauty, appeared to guide and animate the march of the Catholic army. The counsels of the Visigoths were irresolute and distracted.
The swarming white men Visigoths, Vandals had found out this spot for centuries held mysteriously dear to the first peoples of that country. They tore open the graves, scattered the childlike emblems, picked to pieces the little packages of furs and claws, jibing at the "medicine" which in its time had meant so much to the man who had left it there.
Attila already exulted in the confidence of victory, when the valiant Torismond descended from the hills, and verified the remainder of the prediction. The Visigoths, who had been thrown into confusion by the flight or defection of the Alani, gradually restored their order of battle; and the Huns were undoubtedly vanquished, since Attila was compelled to retreat.
The Visigoths after the death of Alaric had settled in parts of Gaul, and their king had now agreed to join the Romans against the common enemy the terrible Huns. So the great army of the Romans and Visigoths marched up and attacked the Huns at Chalons. It was a fierce battle. Both sides fought with the greatest bravery. At first the Huns seemed to be winning.
The Visigoths refused to allow one party to break an engagement without the consent of the other; and if a woman, being already engaged, went over to another man without her parent's or fiancé's leave, both she and the man who took her were handed over as slaves to the original fiancé. The other barbarians were content to inflict a money fine for breach of promise.
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